Ford Galpenergia Racing Rota do D?o preview

Objective: a victory at the yearend!
Lisbon, November 13, 2001 - About nine months after the project
kick-off, at the TAP - Rally of Portugal, the Ford Galpenergia Racing
team will make its farewell from this year's rally stages with the ...

Objective: a victory at the yearend!

Lisbon, November 13, 2001 - About nine months after the project
kick-off, at the TAP - Rally of Portugal, the Ford Galpenergia Racing
team will make its farewell from this year's rally stages with the main
objective of a return to the top podium places.

Maintaining the now renewed and always reliable Ford Focus WRC which
made its debut about a fortnight ago on the Casinos do Algarve Rally,
Rui Madeira and Fernando Prata leave the promise that they won't
disappoint the fans from the team supported by Galpenergia and the Ford
Dealer Network, as they will make a rally full of determination and
without any pressure related with strategic roles for the championship.

"Facing all the events that, one way or the other, have made
impossible to show on tarmac surfaces the dominium that we implemented
during the gravel events of this year's Portuguese Rally Championship,
we would like to end up the present series with a victory at the
Sport/Rota do Dão Rally", said Rui Madeira. "It would be a
fair tribute to all team members, as well as to our sponsors", he
added.

"Now that the title is definitively aside, our thoughts go
exclusively to getting a victory, which, if it happens, will allow us
to become Vice Rally Champions", he says. To reach that goal,
which reflects the main objective of a team with the dimension and
responsibility of Ford Galpenergia Racing for every event it might
take part, Rui Madeira knows that he will have "to count with the
performance of my main opponents, from Peugeot or Toyota, among other
possible contenders. But, who knows...!"

As for the Sport/Rota do Dão Rally, to be held next Saturday, November
17, within Viseu region, it has six stages, all to be held twice, which
total 106.8 km. "This is another sprint rally, a kind of event that
I do not truly like but that many organizers are choosing as format for
their rallies. This makes the events shorter, putting an end to the real
'true and tough' special stages!".